


Drink 'Till I Don't Know the Meaning of Alone

by The_Daydreams_Of_Pernelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aaron makes a cameo, Angst, M/M, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse, for absolutely no reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Daydreams_Of_Pernelle/pseuds/The_Daydreams_Of_Pernelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas remembered his old language -- a green-glass lake in a shower of rain, the eye of a hurricane, lightning and storm clouds and darkness, all wrapped into one lovely body that was Dean, Dean, Dean. His Dean, the most important person in the world.  And with the pill coating his mind with a syrupy-sweet layer of fog, he forgot that Dean didn't need him anymore, that Dean thought-- Dean knew -- he was useless. Because what was an angel without its wings?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drink 'Till I Don't Know the Meaning of Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Bullet by Devil Makes Three

 

Cas fell when Sam said yes. Well, he didn't quite _fall_ , technically; he didn't rip his Grace out and hurtle down to Earth to be born again as a human child. He just stopped flying and stayed with Dean until he asked otherwise. For the first few months, he thought he might as well have ripped his wings out, feather by bloody feather. Might as well have torn everything he was apart at the seams. Before, he could fly to the edge of the universe and back in the time it took Dean to blink. _I could_ , he used to think -- in his old language, the one of stars a million light years from earth and of the profound blue a thousand miles under the ocean and of the chirping of a lone cricket in the countryside as the sky lit up with fireflies -- _I could fly around the earth whenever Dean closed his eyes for a fraction of a second if I so chose, but then I would be useless_. If he allowed himself one second of freedom to be free of conflict, he wouldn't be able to bring himself back to Dean.

Dean who was hurting; Dean who would never stop blaming himself and couldn't see any way to ease the pain without drowning himself in alcohol and false connections with strange women. The worst part was that Cas couldn't see a way to make him smile again either. Couldn't see a way to bring back the smile Dean had when Cas had accidentally offended that woman at the den of iniquity.

So Cas was the best he could be for Dean. He followed all of his orders, did his best to keep the Croatoan virus contained, flew around the world to find any supplies left to hoard when Dean asked, any survivors to help them fight -- and Dean was holding it together, Cas thought. He still drank, he still fucked half the women at camp, but he didn't spiral down into hopelessness, didn't put a bullet in his head and leave the survivors with a half used-up angel and an anxious prophet to lead the rest of the refugees. So Cas accepted it for what it was, and carried on. But then the rest of the angels left.

 

* * *

 

Cas didn't notice at first, no one did. He had always spent the nights in Dean's cabin, pretending to read lore and study maps until Dean fell asleep and Cas could watch over him to try and keep nightmares from his mind, even if only for the few hours Dean actually slept. So when the first tendrils of exhaustion began creeping into the corners of his mind and Cas drifted off for 15 minutes, no one was there -- or conscious enough -- to notice.

 

* * *

 

Cas himself first noticed when they were shimmying under barbed wire to escape an ambush from Croats. A gash on his arm, bright red against his pale, still clean skin that wouldn't heal-- that _hurt_ , hurt like a million things he had never thought he would experience -- was, to him, the first marker of his true fall.

When they had gotten back to camp, Cas found a silent, empty little place behind a cabin and rolled his sleeve up to inspect the wound. It was a jagged cut, and flowing from it was more blood than had ever so much as touched him. It stung. It burned; it seared its presence onto his memory forever.

It made him remember how once, in the very beginnings of the world, when winds had yet to begin blowing across the world; trees would grow and grow, with no troubles placed upon them. No air to push and push until they reached their breaking point, just water and sun and life. But the instant the winds were released, the moment the first light breeze began to rustle through their branches, the tall, tall trees collapsed under their own weight, their lost invincibility crushing them faster than any storm could have.

 

* * *

 

Dean first noticed weeks after Cas, weeks that Cas had spent horrified at the idea that he couldn't fly, couldn't heal, couldn't help anymore. His old language -- the one of northern auroras and dewdrops in the morning and the birth of stars -- was fading fast and he could barely even wrap his head around what a dust storm swirling through the desert was supposed to _mean_ , let alone how to express it. He couldn't even properly articulate his newfound worthlessness in his own mind (but oh, how he tried; a single snowflake in a blizzard, a speck of dark matter in a black hole, a drop of warm water in the Arctic ocean), how could he possibly tell the rest of the camp, tell _Dean_ , what he now was? But that didn't matter; none of it _mattered_ , when Dean came to Cas one afternoon, glaring at angry refugees to give them space.

"Could you zap over to Japan or someplace, see if there's any soap or toilet paper or something left? We're runnin' low on supplies and unless we get our asses in gear we're gonna have a lot of angry campers on our hands," Dean had asked, still confident, still kind. Because Cas was an _angel_ , because Cas had powers that could help save them all, because Cas's mojo made him Dean's right hand man.

How Cas hated it, to see Dean thinking the only thing that could possibly go wrong with his plan was for the rest of the world to have as little soap as they.

"That may be a problem…" Cas stumbled over the words, reluctant to let Dean know how inconsequential Cas was now.

"Why? What happened?" Dean demanded, taking a half step forward and running his eyes over Cas. Looking for the defect, Cas knew. His superiors had done the same when they suspected of his affection for Dean, tried to find the flaw that would mess up their plans so that it could be eliminated.

"I can't, exactly… "zap" anymore," Cas admitted, head down, ashamed of his weakness.

"What? You mean you're-"

"Human," Cas finished for him, disgust for himself welling up. He couldn't even hear Dean say the word that made him redundant. "Yes."

"Come with me," Dean commanded, turning on his heel and striding towards his cabin.

Cas followed. "What about the supplies?"

"They can wait."

When they got to his cabin, Dean went straight for his duffel and threw a set of clothes at Cas. "Now that you can't just mojo your outfit back to mint condition, you're gonna need some more clothes."

 

* * *

 

Later, when the camp knew what had happened to Cas, they didn't talk about it. They quieted when they passed him in Dean's clothes, just a bit too big for him. Cas wanted to fly away, off to the Andromeda galaxy, to explore Orion's belt until he could forget the accusations on their faces, the disappointment. But he couldn't do that anymore could he? He couldn't even ease his own mind. He didn't even know how to be human, how could he possibly help run the camp?

Dean had gotten him his own cabin, Cas knew he was being exiled, hardly even worthy of Dean's notice, much less his sleeping quarters. Chuck was waiting for him there when he arrived, friendly in his stumbling sort of way. He offered him a small orange bottle, stammering something out about painkillers, should he ever get hurt. Cas let him finish and hurry out, off to fill his role.

 

* * *

 

He didn't look at that bottle for months, just kept it tucked in the bottom drawer of his bedside table, a reminder of his newfound weakness. But one night, a demon snuck its way into one of the fresh recruits, a survivor yet to be inscribed with the sigil to ward of demonic possession. Cas found out first, found the demon and struck it's forehead with his open palm, forgetting for a brief moment that he could no longer exorcise demons so easily. The demon had laughed and bent his wrist back until it popped. Cas knew how to fight, he knew how to bring the demon to its knees even without banishing it through Grace, but he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel past the pain in his wrist. It would have killed him if half the camp hadn't heard his screams and come armed, shouting the exorcism chant just in time to see Castiel, their guardian angel, curled up on the ground, howling over his injured wrist.

He woke up in his bed, wrist still hurting, a plaid shape slipping out the door. Cas whimpered as he reached down with his good hand to take hold of the orange pill bottle and drew it out. Swallowing it dry and cradling his wrist, Cas waited for the pain to dull.

But they didn't exactly have an overabundance of simple aspirin at Camp Chitaqua, and Chuck hadn't given Cas anything close to weak. The small white pills sent Cas soaring amongst the stars, a smile on his lips and the rings of Saturn swirling in his mind. He was able to think of Dean as he remembered him, back when he had been useful, liked. Cas remembered his old language -- a green-glass lake in a shower of rain, the eye of a hurricane, lightning and storm clouds and darkness, all wrapped into one lovely body that was _Dean, Dean, Dean. His Dean, the most important person in the world._ And with the pill coating his mind with a syrupy-sweet layer of fog, he forgot that Dean didn't need him anymore, that Dean thought-- Dean _knew --_ he was useless. What was an angel without its wings?

 

* * *

 

The pills weren't the end for Cas. Of course not, he had learned how to cope with inadequacy and grief from _Dean Winchester_ for God's sake. The first girl -- Cas forgot her name -- came because she heard of his strange little white pills. Cas had assumed she wanted to take them from him, but it turned out she only wanted to share her own, as well as a strange plant they smoked together. It was like flying, soaring through the cosmos without a care in the world.

When he woke up the next morning naked beside her, he couldn't remember how her limbs had gotten wrapped up in his, though he had a vague notion of what they had done together. Unfortunately, all he remembered of the night before were some half-clear ideas of how to describe the softened curve of Dean's jaw as he slept in the old language, older than Ennochian, older than Death.

He learned how to remember quickly though. Exactly how high to get when sleeping with the women who began coming through his doorway with some form of drugs or another. One brought in something in a needle once, Cas had sent her away. He didn't need anything poking out of his skin, a tangible reminder of his mortality; that's why he did the drugs in the first place.

Eventually the one woman every night turned into two or three, sometimes more. He didn't even keep track nowadays. It didn't matter. Clinging to the last vestiges of the old tongue for the sole purpose of describing Dean like it was a religion didn't require him to know how many holes he had fucked, how many pills he had popped, or how many bottles he had drunk. He just needed _more._

 

* * *

 

Cas had lost track of the days by the time Dean reappeared in his life, furious and cold. The night before had been Cas's first time with a guy. Aaron, he thought his name was. Big-eyed and relaxed, he had come for the women, really. But by the time the orgy was in full swing he and Cas were too wrapped up in each other to notice much else. He doubted they would have gotten along as well had they met sober, such was the joy of being stoned -- people were much easier to get along with. That didn't seem to make Dean any happier.

"What the hell, Cas?" Dean demanded. "You lose your wings, you need time to adjust, _I get it._ But this? This isn't you. Going around, screwing women like it's your last night on earth, spending all day high as a kite- I _need_ you to run this friggin' camp and you're just tuning out."

Cas stared at him for a moment, hollow defeat choking him as he forgot the ways he had grasped just a night ago to capture Dean's essence in his anger. He choked out a hollow laugh and turned to pour himself a drink of the hardest liquor he had.

That didn't go well. Dean had him pushed against the wall by the lapels of his shirt, given to him by one of the girls (He wasn't deserving enough to wear Dean's shirt, it was too precious), and had shoved his bottles of booze and drugs to the floor before Cas could so much as unscrew the cap.

Cas's head lolled back against the wall as he gave Dean a bitter smile and laughed again. "You need me? Oh, that's just great. I can't fly, I can't heal, I can hardly even remember the Ennochian for my own name, why would you need _me_?" Cas pushed Dean off with his last word, all of his self-hatred coming back swinging, held back too long by a fuzzy haze of drugs.

"What? Is that was you think?" Dean asked, his voice scraping over the words in the incredulous tone that was so _Dean_ for a moment that Cas just wanted to punch him.

"It's what's true, isn't it?"

"Cas, I don't need you because of some angel mojo, or because you can hop 'round the globe in a second, we can get by without that. I need you 'cause you're _you,_ ” Cas didn't know how to respond. Dean must be lying, he had to be.  He was scraping it out in that gruff voice because someone had made him. Chuck, maybe, it must have been Chuck "You're my friend and I need you, so you can't tune out, you can't stay in here all day getting high off patchouli or whatever it is you do. If I need you on a mission, I need you and you are coming with me, angel or not."

But Cas wasn't high enough, wasn't drunk enough, wasn't detached enough to just take this in to let it wind through his thoughts like a lazy river. So Cas kissed him hot and desperate for any grain of truth in Dean's speech, reaching for anything that would let him believe Dean was still _his_ Dean. The one he had first seen broken in Hell, the one that still had his brother, the one that thought of Cas as important. It was messy and sloppy and Cas so _wished_ it wasn't the aftereffects of the drugs making him think that Dean was kissing him back. If Cas could fix Dean by tearing himself apart with this kiss, he would have. And even though he knew he couldn't, he tried; tried until his eyes began to fill with salt water and his mind began to fill with the broken pieces of Dean. But they were all sucked back into him the instant Risa called outside of the cabin for Dean. His jaw tightened as he pulled away from Cas. Observing him with some unknown look that Cas wanted so badly to be desire in his eye before his expression hardened and he jerked his head for Cas to come.

 

* * *

 

Cas broke his foot that mission. Great start. Dean carried his weight with Cas's arm over his shoulder to Cas's cabin to bandage him up. The pain lancing hot through his body, worse than his wrist had been, worse than the gash on his arm. The instant Dean laid him down on the bed Cas was grabbing for the pill bottles on his nightstand, anything to drown out the hurt. Dean looked on disapprovingly as he wrapped Cas's foot up.

Of course he disapproved. Cas was a shitty little soldier after all. Couldn’t stay an angel, couldn't heal himself, could hardly keep his _clothes clean._ He couldn't keep himself from kissing Dean, probably disgusting him, couldn't even go on a fucking _supply run_ without breaking his foot. Couldn't even handle the consequences when he did that. _Well_ , Cas thought as the three different pills he had just swallowed began to set in. _Dean can suck my dick because this is damn well never going to change._

The next two months Cas spent as he had spent his time before, except with more drugs and somehow, more sex. Dean visited at first, if only to check up on his foot, until Aaron started to come by often, growing bolder in his visits as time progressed.

About halfway through the second month, Cas had discovered a lovely combination of booze, pills, weed, and some hallucinogenic mushroom Chuck had found in the woods that made it oh so easy to pretend Aaron's huge brown eyes were green, his lithe body was well-muscled yet lean and his round jaw wide and square. He made sure Aaron stayed every day after that, made sure he stayed nights too.

A week before Cas was off bed rest, Dean came into Cas's cabin. Cas, in his half hung-over, half still high state, barely noticed the clenching of his jaw and the tightness in Dean shoulders when he saw Aaron and Cas tangled together. He had come to bring Aaron on a mission, his first one out. Cas heard the gunshot when they got back, knew Dean had shot an infected Aaron in the head even before Chuck softly knocked on his door to break it to him. Cas barely heard him he was flying so high.

 

* * *

 

 

Soon Dean wasn't Dean anymore. Not the one Cas had fallen for. He was stony-faced and determined, unwilling to let anything get in the way of killing Lucifer. Cas didn't know if that made it hurt more or less as he began to help run the show again, began to regain some of his past fighting skills. With his Dean-substitute gone, he might as well confine his fucking hours to night time. By the time Zachariah brought past Dean to him, he and his own time's Dean couldn't even get along if they tried, no matter how many orders Cas followed, no matter how he resigned himself to their "fearless leaders" ways; the hostility was always just under the surface.

 

* * *

 

 

He hadn't expected Dean to come into his cabin today; it was Cas's off day. He worshipped in his own little way every Thursday, a far cry from his old silent vigil. Worshipping in flesh and smoke and visions seemed a far better way in this newfound perspective on life. This particular Thursday, a new group of refugee girls had come to his cabin. He was explaining to them the spirituality of an orgy when he heard Dean walking up the creaky steps to his room.

Halfway to completely stoned already, Cas began to lay every ounce of false flattery he had on the girls for Dean to hear. It was just masochism on his part, really. Dean didn't care who he fucked, the blank look on his face every time Cas walked out of his cabin smelling of sweet smoke and sex said as much. But Cas still flaunted it, still glanced back at Dean and winked before sending the women off to shower.

Standing up to crack his back, turned away from Dean, he attempted to give some illusion of disinterest.  He let the hurt Dean's hippie comment be filed away for later and slide into exasperation. He turned around, ready to send Dean off, or give in to his request as usual, when he was suddenly confronted with the reality of who he was speaking to. This wasn't the Dean of now, the one that had hardened his heart and thought of the world before the people in it, this was the old Dean. This was the Dean that came to him first when he needed help; this was the Dean he had followed into ruin. 

Wonder and shock and awe and a million other confused feelings flitted through his mind in an instant. He barely registered the conversation with Dean, but 2009 and Zachariah were the only things he really needed to know. So it shouldn't have been a surprise when Dean asked for him to "strap on his angel wings" because, to Dean, he still had them, he was still _useful_. In that moment, 5 years' worth of inadequacy and pain came roaring back into his head in a millisecond. If he hadn't been stoned to all hell already, he probably would have fallen to his knees. As it was he just began to giggle, high-pitched and watery-eyed, feeling like someone had shoved shards of glass through the spaces in his ribs, all reaching straight for his heart.

 

* * *

 

 

"Our fearless leader, I'm afraid, is all too well schooled in the art of getting to the truth." Cas had been furious when Dean took up torture again. He had yet to discover drugs and was just barely adjusting to life without wings when he had heard. Cas had found Dean in his cabin and Cas had yelled until he was blue in the face, but Dean's calm wouldn't break. The next morning the camp had run slow, everyone jumpy and anxious with their hero too hung-over to do much of anything.

So when the past Dean was angry at his future self for torturing again, Cas laughed, a small vindication after all these years. The Dean of now glared at him.

"What? I like past you." Cas snarked at Dean. Past Dean, the one Cas had fallen for -- in every sense of the word. _Past_ Dean, the one that didn't torture, the one that still felt. **_Past_ ** Dean, Cas began to realize. Not **_his_ ** Dean.

Now-Dean began to lay out his plan, suicidal and idiotic. Cas felt the need to point out the sheer insanity of his plan to him.

"Are you coming?"

The old Dean, the one he had met again after so many years -- the one he kept in his memories as _his_ \-- he was here and Cas was still detached. Didn't feel for him as he had thought he would, if he could do it all over again. Because the Dean of 2014, the one that tortured and killed and hurt, he was Cas's. It didn't matter who Dean became because somewhere, he would always be Dean. The green-eyed protector of the earth. And Cas would follow him off the edge of the earth.

"Of course."

 

* * *

 

 

Gearing up to kill the devil wasn't the best experience when you knew it was a suicide mission. Old-Dean was hissing at Cas's Dean about letting friends die, but Cas had known this was a long time coming. This suicide mission was a welcome the pit of crap that had become his life. Maybe if Dean killed the devil he'd start smiling again. Maybe, if God was kind, he would let Cas see that before he wiped his existence from the earth. So Cas went in guns blazing, ready to take out a million Croats and demons on his way out.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean would say he had forgotten what Sammy looked like, but that would be a lie. His brother was in an impossibly white suit and wearing a smile that was so _not Sam_ that Dean wanted to scream.

"Ah, Dean. Nice to see we've finally made it to this point. How long has it taken you? Five years? Probably would have gone a lot faster if you hadn't been worrying over your little pet angel. What was his name again?"

"Cas has nothing to do with this you sick bastard," Dean ground out, choking back every damned emotion he felt flooding back at the sight of his little brother so warped.

"Oh? So you didn't drop half of your responsibilities to give Castiel his own cabin? Or his own clothes? Didn't want him to be waltzing around in your clothes like he was _yours_? Didn't panic the instant you thought something was wrong with him? Don't think I don't know every little thing that goes on in that little camp of yours. He was all you had left and all he wanted to do was forget about you. Don’t think I don’t know you would have given the world for him to have meant that kiss, for him to not have been gone from the world because of some hallucinogenic plant or another. Don't think I don't know you wanted to murder the girls who slept with him. Or that boy. The big-eyed one, I would describe him better, but I can't keep as close tabs on the little cockroaches that aren't infected with my little masterpiece of a disease."

Dean just gritted his teeth and pulled the Colt out and aimed it right at his little brother's head as Lucifer made Sam's face twist into a smile. "Die you dumb son of a bitch."

The bullet hit Sammy square in the forehead, knocking his head backwards before he began to laugh. "Of all the things in the world you can kill with that gun, the one you most want to kill is unkillable. Talk about ironic."

And then, in a flash, Dean was on the ground with a foot pressed into his neck, just catching a glimpse of his past self before Lucifer pressed down and he heard a final _snap_.

 

* * *

 

Risa and the grunts had died quickly and Cas was surrounded by demons and Croats when he heard a gunshot. The first real smile he had cracked in five years crept up onto his face. Dean had done it. But then the demons began to smile too, and the Croats began laughing. They all were gone the next moment. Disappearing into the crevices of the old building, a burnt-out angel not important enough for them to bother killing the only living thing left.

Cas ran. Ran for the garden Dean had headed towards, ran until he saw the body and fell to his knees. Dean was dead. Gone. Would there even be a heaven for him without the angels? The rest of them, Chuck and the others were doomed. Dean was gone, there was no backup plan. All they could do was wait for the Croats to get to them.

  

* * *

 

When Cas got back to camp, everyone stayed their distance. They could tell something was wrong. Cas hoped they'd give him at least an hour until they wanted questions answered.

He entered his cabin, the one of only ones with a proper bed, and gathered everything he had. 27 different pills washed down with tequila and rum ought to do it, right?

He thought maybe, just maybe, if he flew high enough with this one last go, if he was lucky enough to find the perfect way in the old language to precisely encapsulate Dean, maybe Cas could find his soul on its way up to God-knows-where, and they could make their last journey together. And maybe, just maybe, Dean would want Castiel by his side.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I really shouldn't have watched The End. It makes me so sad.  
> But this is the first fic I've published online. So yay!  
> Putting Aaron in there was probably a mistake but it was one in the morning and I was too lazy to make up anyone else for Cas to sleep with.  
> My writing tumblr is the-daydreams-of-pernelle.tumblr.com/ if anyone's interested.


End file.
